Join us on Twitter and IRC (#ludumdare on Afternet.org) for the Theme Announcement!

Thanks everyone for coming out! For the next 3 weeks, we’ll be Playing and Rating the games you created.You NEED ratings to get a score at the end. Play and Rate games to help others find your game.We’ll be announcing Ludum Dare 36’s August date alongside the results.

New Server: Welcome to the New (less expensive) Server! Find any problems? Report them here.

Ladies and gentlemen, girls and boys, this — is Ludum Dare 15. The big one-five. And talk about big.

We have many many new things to share with you today, so read this post carefully.

New website look and Avatars

You’re seeing it right now. A shiny new theme to compliment the shiny new version of WordPress. And after some web hackery, we also have Avatars (i.e. gravitars).

To set your little picture, you need to sign up at www.gravatar.com. Gravatars follow you around on all the wordpress blogs you post on, by hashing your e-mail address. So all you should need to do is sign up at both sites (ludumdare.com/compo, and gravatar.com) using the same e-mail address. Easy.

New Submission System

We have a brand new submission system. Gone are the days of “Final” tags and confusing image upload problems (that I usually end up fixing). Now we have a lovely brand new streamlined entry submission system put together by everyone’s favorite philhassey, Mr. Phil Hassey. When you’re ready to submit your entry, hit this page.

NOTE: The submission system hosts images, but not downloads. If you need help hosting your entry, ask in IRC or make a comment/post requesting help.

NOTE2: Please only create an entry once you have a download ready. You are not required to declare your intent to enter. Just show up, sign up, and submit once you’re done.

Keynote Address

That’s right. What better way to say Ludum Dare 15 is a big deal than to say it in recorded digital video. So without further ado, check out the Ludum Dare 15 keynote address with Mike Hommel (hamumu).

Voting Categories

We’ve gone ahead and refined the voting categories for the competition. They are as follows.

Innovation – How interesting, original or unique an entry is.Fun – Unique yes, but is it actually enjoyable?Theme – Good, clever, or interesting uses of the theme.Graphics – Is it pretty?Audio – Does it sound nice?Humor – Does the game amuse you. The concept, the presentation, etc.Overall – Do you love it?Community – Journaling, sharing workspace photos, meal photos, motivational posters, recorded a timelapse video, etc. How well did they tastefully go above and beyond to participate, as well as tell and show you what they did?

Coolness (i.e. Voting) – This isn’t actually a category you’re voted on. Rather, it reflects how well you voted on entries during the voting phase. People that play and vote for 25%, 50%, and 75%+ of the entries get awarded bronze, silver and gold icon medals in the coolness category.

More Stuff

You can join us in IRC. #ludumdare on irc.afternet.org. You should be able to find more than a few people to answer your questions there throughout the weekend.

We have some common tags for types of posts. deskphoto for pictures of where you work. foodphoto for pictures of your meals. motivation for silly motivational posters you decide to make. timelapse for timelapse videos. Try to use those so people can more easily browse them.

Seth (mrfun) fixed the World Map (*cough*… that I broke). You can see where people around the world are entering from, and add yourself. In addition, we collect humorous quotes from IRC throughout competitions and the off time. We’re adults, so some of the things said may not be suitable for minors. Those you can check out here.

We do mini Ludum Dare competitions in the off months. Veterans take a month, pick a weekend, and provide a theme. Check back regularly to catch the latest Mini LD.

And if you’d like to stay informed of future events, we have a mailing list.

This entry was posted
on Friday, August 28th, 2009 at 3:30 pm and is filed under LD #15 - Caverns - 2009.
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Each voting category is independent and some are optional. If your game is not supposed to be funny people will just leave the humor category empty. Games without sound won’t get votes for sound. ‘Overall’ is an independently voted category too, not an average so there is no penalty for not making a funny game (except for the fact that humorous games are usually well received but if your game is awesome that’s not going to be a problem)

I can’t get back to sleep for some reason, so I had to wake up 2:30 houres before the competition starts… I wish everyone good luck and may my head ack disapear to thin air… >_< I wish the theme would be burrowing or caverns because its pritty cool yea =]